In some messaging systems, SCR's are capable of receiving advertisements in addition to personal messages. Both the advertisements and the personal messages are transmitted by an operator of the messaging system to one or more SCR's that are subscribed to the messaging service. An SCR that receives an advertisement can display it whenever the user desires, and in the same manner as a personal message.
While a user of an SCR is likely to read his personal messages, he is less likely to read advertisements received by his SCR. If SCR users could be successfully encouraged to read more advertisements, or to read them more carefully, there would be an obvious benefit to advertisers who could justify spending more money on advertisements. The resulting increased income to the operator of the messaging system can also benefit the SCR users. The system operator can use that income to lower, or perhaps even eliminate, the monthly fees paid by his subscribers.
What is needed, therefore, is a way of successfully encouraging SCR users to read their advertisements. The form of encouragement used should provide, to the SCR user, a clearly visible reward for reading advertisements; in addition, the users must remain able to use their SCR's to read personal messages without undue restrictions or complications.